Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

Oh goodness, field trips. I'm a preschool teacher--about as malleable as a child's brain gets while in front of a teacher--and we take exactly one field trip a year. Every year. It's such a waste. Oh, and it's always to the same place (the dinosaur museum). Every single year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Observations from this thread:

1. Most teachers are overworked.

2. Many teachers take pride in being overworked.

3. Many teachers shame teachers unwilling to overwork themselves.

4. Most teachers are unaware of how few hours teachers spend teaching overseas, and how little of what US teachers do is necessary.

5. Most teachers are unaware of the fact that SES, not whether a teacher works 40, 60, or 80h a week, is the primary determinant of student long term outcomes.

NP. Oh, I'm aware. Which is why I'm trying to leave my high FARMS rate school because of the culture that we must keep doing and giving more more more. If we bring up SES or situations at home we're told we're making excuses. The question is always what more can we give? More money, more time, more effort. As much as I love the kids, I'm ready to go to a school with a low FARMS rate and kids who can pass the standardized tests no matter what the teachers are like and so the pressure is off.

I don't want to have to serve on any more committees like the Family Engagement Committee because those schools don't need to rack their brains figuring out ways to get parents involved in their child's education. I don't want to sit at any more data chats and have to discuss why Alexander's MAP scores decreased from last quarter and when I bring up that he told me he didn't eat breakfast the morning of testing because he got to school too late because his family all shares one room in a house and the baby was crying all night so they didn't get to the bus on time, I'm told that shouldn't impact him as long as I'm identifying barriers to him acquiring a concept and differentiating my instruction accordingly. OK, let's just ignore the elephant in the room.

I want to be at a school that gets to have assemblies and field trips because there is money for it and the principal doesn't get worried that the kids will be missing content instruction for those things because they need to answer to their boss as to why the data doesn't look good. Speaking of money, I don't want to have to spend my own in order to be able to do my job. I also don't want to have to contribute money or food items for school events (for families, not staff) anymore. I give enough. I just want to be able to do my job and then go home.

I know the grass is always greener on the other side and working at a school with a high SES population has its own issues but I think I'm ready to trade issues. I do not want to end up like the martyr teachers down the hall who devote their own lives to other peoples' children and are at work until 8pm and work on weekends and have little in their bank accounts because they keep giving and giving. My own children are more important to me, and the reality is that we are not going to be working many miracles because poverty has a greater impact on these kids' lives than I do. Yes, I said it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Observations from this thread:

1. Most teachers are overworked.

2. Many teachers take pride in being overworked.

3. Many teachers shame teachers unwilling to overwork themselves.

4. Most teachers are unaware of how few hours teachers spend teaching overseas, and how little of what US teachers do is necessary.

5. Most teachers are unaware of the fact that SES, not whether a teacher works 40, 60, or 80h a week, is the primary determinant of student long term outcomes.

I highly doubt most teachers are unaware of that fact. I taught 3 different high school courses with a total of 128 students, about a third of whom had IEPs. This meant in addition to teaching during contract hours, I was also planning 3 different lessons every day, grading 128 students' essays, projects, and other assignments, attending mandatory IEP meetings and other meetings related to my students. This is all work I had to do to be an effective teacher. It does not include anything extra I may elect to do because I think it may benefit my students (like tutoring after school hours, corresponding with students and agents via email after school hours, being involved with extracurricular activities and other community building activities at the school, etc). Even if I cut back to the bare minimum outside of my teaching hours, of lesson/curriculum planning, grading, and attending meetings, if still easily put in 60-70 hour weeks. It has nothing to do with me thinking I need to go above and beyond what I'm being paid to do; it's 60-70 hours worth of work just to be good and effective at teaching my students the course material and meeting requirements mandated by my district of attending IEPs and being involved in developing differentiated curriculum specifically for the students I have.

Anonymous wrote:Observations from this thread:

1. Most teachers are overworked.

2. Many teachers take pride in being overworked.

3. Many teachers shame teachers unwilling to overwork themselves.

4. Most teachers are unaware of how few hours teachers spend teaching overseas, and how little of what US teachers do is necessary.

5. Most teachers are unaware of the fact that SES, not whether a teacher works 40, 60, or 80h a week, is the primary determinant of student long term outcomes.

Observations from this thread:

1. Most teachers are overworked.

2. Many teachers take pride in being overworked.

3. Many teachers shame teachers unwilling to overwork themselves.

4. Most teachers are unaware of how few hours teachers spend teaching overseas, and how little of what US teachers do is necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Based on what I'm hearing here, do they even teach contract law as part of the admin endorsement? Seems like there's a whole lot of contract breaching going on and it seems to be getting worse.

This is why a strong Union is needed. Not just pushy folks in the union leadership, but school staff who are active union members and willing to stick their necks out. My building has two people who are supposed to do that, but they don't because they both want to be admin one day. No one else --including me--- is brave enough to be the person who stands up in the staff meeting to point out the violation. I've seen what happens to teachers who are the only one to speak up. They get the worse course assignments and schedules, there are suddenly anonymous complaints about their teaching requiring constant observations. Their activities are approved or funded.

When I was a relatively new teacher, I decided to point out something my principal was doing that was in violation of the contract. I naively thought that going to my union rep would ensure anonymity. It turns out that my union rep went right to my principal. Like everything else in the contract, decisions are ultimately left up to the principal as long as they are made "in the best interest of the school". I was called out (without using my name) in front of the whole staff. Then I was definitely on the wrong side of the principal for a few years and it was pretty miserable. The contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on because at any time the Board of Ed and County Council can decide to take away compensation such as cost of living increases or longevity steps that were promised and written into the contract. The language used is also incredibly vague and a lot is left up to interpretation but the principal's interpretation trumps the teacher's interpretation.

Fun fact--in MCPS it's actually called an "agreement" not a "contract".

Anonymous wrote:
Here's the reality. School should be 4 days a week year round with 1-2 weeks vacation every quarter.

Perhaps that's your reality. I'd much rather have a much larger block of time in the summer.

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

I'm one of the PPs who religiously enters and leaves at contracted hours and typically only does about .5h a week of work outside of class (except for during assessment season 3x a year when it can shoot up to 14h a week for 3 weeks). I also have 2 kids and plans for up to 2 more. Of the 20 teachers in my building, I'm one of only *3* with children under 5 and one of only 5 with kids under 10. The building is definitely full of older parents who don't value their time at home. I'm not one of them.

"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work? Should I stop doing clubs and then the kids have nothing? Should I stop attending a website workshop to communicate with parents? Should I stop doing curriculum pilots and let other people decide which curriculum we choose (and I've seen other teachers choose really bad curriculum in the past which creates a shit ton *more* work and doesn't help kids)? Should I stop creating immensely awesome science lessons and just pull out a science worksheet? Should I stop writing grants? Cause that means either a) my kids have nothing to use for math or b) I pay for it out of my kids college fund. What else is useless? How about differentiating reading lessons for my students? I'll just do all whole group teaching so the low kids and the high kids don't get shit and everything is geared towards the middle performers. Parents would LOVE that.

Here's the reality. School should be 4 days a week year round with 1-2 weeks vacation every quarter. Period. Then, we wouldn't have summer slide, teachers wouldn't be so exhausted and I could work a normal 40-45 hour work week like people should work.

I absolutely have the right to complain about my hours and my pay. You have the right not to listen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. To the teacher getting her middle school endorsement. No way will you EVER be able to put in 40 hour work weeks. Maybe 50 on a good week and especially if you have a 4 day week due to a holiday. The first few years will be the hardest and you can plan on 70-80 hour weeks then. Make sure you get at least 5 years in before having kids.

So what about all the teacher moms? Are they all really pulling 60 hour weeks while raising kids?

I don't know too many teacher moms. I see a lot of young teachers with no kids or young kids or middle aged empty nesters or those who just didn't have kids and literally have no life (they are the ones who tend to pile on the work).

I am joining the profession now that my kids are teens but I still feel like I'm burning the candles at both ends as I have mom's taxi duties many nights. No way in hell could I have been an effective teacher when my kids were younger. Hat's off to those supermom/teachers, wherever you are.

At our school we only have 1 teacher mom out of 17. It is too hard to keep up the pace of hours balanced against home demands. Many have tried for a year or two after having their babies but it is a killer pace. Couple that with the daily disrespect from administration, and most young teachers get out as fast as they can. The only ones who try to hang on are those who want to hit their 5 years to get their student loans forgiven.

My SIL equates working at two pancake breakfasts per year to the hours her kids' teachers put in. ??

Anonymous wrote:Years ago, my union called for teachers to work to their contract. That meant 7 hour days. It was astonishing to outsiders how little actually got done. I taught 4 grade levels so I managed to get maybe half of my lessons done during my 45 minute planning. I occasionally got a bit of grading done too but usually not. No parent emails, no meetings with teachers. My neighbor teaches HS and she hardly got any grading done at all. 150 students plus tons of writing assignments means a lot of extra hours. Teachers in the U.S. have more student contact hours than teachers in other countries. I used to work in a school in Europe and I got a 45 minute duty free lunch, an hour planning per day plus rotating recess duties (I supervised a 30 minute recess for a week every 6 weeks or so) plus another 45 minutes free when the students went to language class.


https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/the-ticking-clock-of-us-teacher-burnout/502253/

My husband teaches in Canada. His contract hours are 8-4, I think. (He never works contract hours) Duty free lunch that he now takes.

A few years ago they were only working to the contract. I laughed at all of the whining and bitching from those outside of the job about what didn't get done.

What's that... your child doesn't have a sports team now?
Oh, they needed extra help?
Their marks aren't in and the teacher is at their desk planning while students work? (One 60 min prep period per week for dh)
That field trip would have been "nice"?
You didn't want to plan your child's graduation ceremony?

Plus

No, there are no extra decorations I'm the room.
Things are put away however the kids did it.
That interesting, cool science lesson just turned into something boring out of a text book.

All stuff teachers here do outside of their contract.

I know many others work outside their allotted hours. But.. teachers do all of this for the benefit of other people's kids and then get shit on if they say anything about it or don't do it.

Teacher working 60 hours/week: The only ones I know who don't are just marking time until they retire. They're done with other people's kids ,the parents and the admin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago, my union called for teachers to work to their contract. That meant 7 hour days. It was astonishing to outsiders how little actually got done. I taught 4 grade levels so I managed to get maybe half of my lessons done during my 45 minute planning. I occasionally got a bit of grading done too but usually not. No parent emails, no meetings with teachers. My neighbor teaches HS and she hardly got any grading done at all. 150 students plus tons of writing assignments means a lot of extra hours. Teachers in the U.S. have more student contact hours than teachers in other countries. I used to work in a school in Europe and I got a 45 minute duty free lunch, an hour planning per day plus rotating recess duties (I supervised a 30 minute recess for a week every 6 weeks or so) plus another 45 minutes free when the students went to language class.


https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/the-ticking-clock-of-us-teacher-burnout/502253/

With millenials joining the ranks of the teaching profession and now having children, they will be the ones to sue the schools for breach of contract. They will also be the ones to change Virginia from a Right to Work State to one that allows real teacher unions. I see them leading the charge in my school.

Thank goodness the Right To Work VA Constitutional amendment was soundly defeated last year! Your hope is still a possibility!